Scott stepped forward, and his voice shook. “He’s not going. If you want to fight this in court, fine. But I’m not giving up my son.”
April crossed her arms, chin lifting in challenge. “He needs his mother, Scott. You can still see him. Summers. Holidays.”
You could see it the instant her words hit. Scott’s face twisted in disbelief. “So, what, you’re just going to erase me? Offer visitation rights to my own kid?”
And then Tony made the dumbest move imaginable. He stepped between them, laying a hand on Scott’s arm like he was trying to calm a wild animal. “Let’s just take a breath,” he said in that smug, patronizing tone used only by men who’ve never been punched in the face. “If what you want is stability for Mitchell,” Tony said, “then we should talk about making this permanent.”
“Tony, stop,” April warned.
“Permanent?” Scott echoed, barely able to control his anger. “You better not be suggesting adoption, because that is never going to happen.”
“I just think he needs a steady male influence full-time.”
For one breathless second, the world just… stopped. Scott’s whole body went rigid. His fist clenched at his side, and the tendons in his forearm stood out like ropes. I saw it happen in slow motion—the flash in his eyes, the lunge.
“Scott, no!” I threw myself in front of him, pressing bothpalms to his chest. His heart was slamming against my hands like a trapped thing. Tony stumbled backward, pale and wide-eyed. The fight was over before it began. But the damage was done.
April stared at Scott, her expression softening, not with triumph, but in something closer to resignation. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” she said. “I just… I knew it would be hard, and I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Her voice steadied, though her eyes stayed on him.
“No one is trying to erase you, Scott. That’s not what this is.” She paused, voice softening. “I gave you the same grace when you moved here with Michelle and the kids. I didn’t fight you. I trusted we’d figure it out. I’m asking for that same trust now.”
Her tone remained calm, almost pleading now.
“This doesn’t have to get ugly. I don’t want that. I will go to court if I have to—but I don’t want to.” She shook her head slightly. “Or you can accept this, and you’re still his dad. You’ll always be his dad.”
A breath.
“I promise, Scott. We’ll make it work.”
Scott didn’t respond. Couldn’t. His shoulders sagged under the weight of something too heavy to name. I stood frozen in the doorway, arms wrapped around myself, feeling like I’d brought this storm down on all of us. If Scott hadn’t moved for me, would any of this be happening?
Mitchell came running back, all sunshine and innocence—until he saw our faces. Until he understood. His joy collapsed in on itself.
He started to cry, and Scott dropped to his knees on the porch step, pulling him in tight. Neither of them spoke. They just held on, as if they could keep the world still long enough to stop what was already happening, yet knowing the agony of what they were both about to lose.
30
SCOTT: KALIFORNIA
April and Tony had been planning the Arizona move long before Mitchell overheard them and spilled it to me. Six weeks after the wedding, my son was gone. My heart was still struggling to catch up. The thought of MGM so far away—of Tony taking over as his full-time dad, of my other kids growing up without their big brother—still burned every time I let myself think about it. Which was all the time. Another man raising my son felt like failure, like I was abandoning him, even though the whole situation had been wrested out of my hands the moment April said she would take me to court. From the beginning, our arrangement had been informal, with April acting as MGM’s primary caregiver. A judge would never rule in my favor. But letting them take my son without a fight felt wrong too. Would Mitchell think I’d abandoned him the way my own father had abandoned me?
Busywork was my lifeline. I spent my free time tinkering around the house. Even things that didn’t need fixing got an extra twist of the screw. Anything to keep my hands moving and my mind from picturing Mitchell’s devastated face as they drove away.
When I came in from the garage, covered in sawdust from sanding a storage bench Michelle had scored at a yard sale, I found her cross-legged on the couch, phone pressed to her ear and notepad balanced on her very pregnant belly.
“Who’s on the phone?” I asked.
“On hold with a golf course in Glendale,” she whispered, cupping the receiver.
I bent to kiss her temple. “Look at you rescuing the Shaggin’ Wagon!”
“I’m trying,” she said. “This is the seventh course I’ve called.”
“Any leads?”
“Not yet. It doesn’t help that I call myself his ‘niece’ but don’t know his last name.”
